Hayden (now 76) is one of the veteran leaders of the American Left, perhaps best known to the general public as the ex-husband of actress and anti-war activist Jane Fonda.

In his latest article he admits that he was an early supporter of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, and has criticised Hillary Clinton for her apparent eagerness to support American involvement in even more foreign wars, her closeness to the financial elite, and her ambiguous stand on environmental issues.

Yet all of these concerns are transcended for Hayden by one overriding issue: race. Whereas Sanders has addressed himself primarily to the concerns of White working-class voters, Clinton still enjoys overwhelming support among Blacks, and to a slightly lesser extent Hispanics.

Hayden confesses:

I intend to vote for Hillary Clinton in the California primary for one fundamental reason. It has to do with race. My life since 1960 has been committed to the causes of African Americans, the Chicano movement, the labor movement, and freedom struggles in Vietnam, Cuba and Latin America. In the environmental movement I start from the premise of environmental justice for the poor and communities of color. My wife is a descendant of the Oglala Sioux, and my whole family is inter-racial.

So White workers in America now have no excuse. They know where they stand. Even Tom Hayden – among the most celebrated semi-socialist, Marxist influenced activists of the 1960s Left – openly argues that his political choices are governed above all by racial self-hatred.